M A I N   N E W S

India in no mood to announce more concessions
to Pakistan
Rajeev Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 19
The Vajpayee government is in no mood to announce more concessions to Pakistan for the sake of improving bilateral relations, sources in the Ministry of External Affairs said today.

India feels that despite Pakistan’s dubious track record on the issue of cross-border terrorism, it can still do business with President Pervez Musharraf.

However, these sources were non-committal when asked whether Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be holding a bilateral meeting with President Musharraf when he would go to Pakistan for attending the SAARC summit in January next year.

Instead, they played down the possibility or even the need for such a meeting saying that Mr Vajpayee was to go for a multilateral meeting and if he were to talk with the leadership of the host nation on the sidelines of the SAARC meet, it could not be deemed as a bilateral meeting.

At the same time there are dim hopes of a political dialogue or Foreign Secretary-level dialogue starting between the two countries in the immediate or near future. The Vajpayee government sticks to its known stand of resuming political-level dialogue with Pakistan if that country were to give evidence of its sincerity to deal with the issue of cross-border terrorism.

“We have shown enough flexibility. There is a big departure in our policy. We are saying let Pakistan give us evidence of its sincerity to deal with cross-border terrorism. Despite that, terrorism has not stopped. We are trying to create the right atmosphere to inspire Pakistan to deal with terrorism,” the sources said.

On Pakistan’s suggestion that the two countries should resume the Foreign Secretary-level talks at the earliest, the sources said “they (Pakistanis) must walk (into the talks) with their feet clean”.

Pakistan has repeatedly maintained that the terrorist outfits operating in Jammu and Kashmir are not under its control and accused India of being a prisoner of its own policy on terrorism as whenever there is a big terrorist strike in India, the Indo-Pak peace talks get a jolt and follow a familiar pattern of one step forward, two step backwards.

India feels that the USA has not put the same kind of pressure on Pakistan with regard to that country’s cross-border terrorism against New Delhi as it has regarding the Taliban and Al-Qaida.

This is reflected from the fact, as pointed out by Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani in the Lok Sabha yesterday, that while the Musharraf regime had handed over 501 Al-Qaida members to the US, the Indian list of 20 criminals and terrorists had failed to produce any result.

They said Pakistan’s recent “outlandish” charge that India was running more than 55 militant training camps to carry out subversive activities against that country was aimed at warding off increasing pressure on Islamabad on the issue of terrorism.

The sources, however, talked of “forward movement” in Indo-Pak relations. The two sides are scheduled to have talks later this month for the restoration of air links and the Indian side has already received a Pakistani proposal for the resumption of the Samjhauta Express.